acquired a knowledge of the arts from the more polished nations they subdued, which they communicated to other nations, who were obliged to submit to their dominion. Having desolated Europe, they set themselves to civilize it, and, as a consolation for the loss of liberty, communicated their arts, sciences, language and manners to their new subjects. Under their auspices, agriculture was encouraged, population increased, the ruined cities were rebuilt, new towns were founded, an appearance of prosperity succeeded, and repaired in some measure the ravages of war.* Such, however, were the defects in the polity of the Romans, and such, perhaps, as were inevitably incident to an empire of such extent, and composed of such discordant materials, that the whole fabric soon became loose and disjointed; and when assaulted by the hardy and intrepid tribes of the north, was prostrated in the dust, and the arts and sciences, together with even the remembrance of many of the inventions and improvements of the philosophers, mathematicians, and mechanicians, of antiquity, perished from the face of the earth.

When the inundation of northern barbarians had in some measure subsided, and a remnant of the human race in Europe had recovered some degree of comparative tranquillity, many circumstances conspired to render the progress of civilization and improvement in the arts extremely slow, and for a while almost imperceptible. The barbarous nations, says an elegant writer,

Robertson's Charles V.

were not only illiterate, but regarded literature with contempt. They found the inhabitants of all the provinces of the empire sunk in effeminacy, and averse to war.— Such a character was the object of scorn to a high spirited and gallant race of men. This degeneracy of manners, illiterate barbarians imputed to the love of learning. Even after they had settled in the countries which they had conquered, they would not suffer their children to be instructed in any science, "for," said they, "instruction in the sciences tends to corrupt, enervate and depress the mind; and he who has been accustomed to tremble under the rod of a pedagogue, will never look on a sword or spear with an undaunted eye." Any employment in agriculture, or the useful arts, was thought by these wild and ferocious conquerors too menial for freemen. They disdained to cultivate the earth or touch a plough; and even their chiefs lived in a sort of pompous indigence, destitute of those comforts and conveniences which, in more modern times, are not often denied to the meanest laborer.*

* Observe the accommodation of the most common artificer, or day-laborer, in a civilized and thriving country, and you will perceive that the number of people, of whose industry a part, though but a small part, has been employed in procuring him accommodation, exceeds all computation. The woollen coat, for example, as coarse and rough as it may appear, is the produce of the joint labor of a great number of workmen. The shepherd, the sorter of wool, the wool-comber, or carder, the dyer, the scribbler, the spinner, the weaver, the fuller, the dresser, with many others, must all join their different arts in order to complete even this homely production. How many merchants and carriers, besides, must have been employed in transporting the materials from some of those workmen to others, who often live

In the dawn, which succeeded the dark ages, literature, science, and the arts were first patronized in Italy, by the Medici; and under the auspices of Lorenzo de Medici, the Italian Pericles, whose name alone suggests an idea of all that is elegant in literature, and consummate in science and arts, they rose to an incredible degree of perfection. "Whilst the study of polite literature was emerging from its state of reptile torpor, the other sciences felt the effects of the same invigorating beam; and the city of Florence, like a sheltered garden in the opening spring, re-echoed with the earliest sounds of returning animation. The Platonic Academy existed in full splendor, and served as a common bond to unite, at stated intervals, those who had signalized themselves by scientific, or literary

in a very distant part of the country. How much commerce and navigation in particular, how many ship-builders, sailors, sail-makers, rope-makers, must have been employed in order to bring together the different drugs made use of by the dyer, which often come from the remotest corners of the world. What a variety of labor is necessary in order to produce the tools of the meanest workman. To say nothing of such complicated machines, as the ship of the sailor, the mill of the fuller, or even the loom of the weaver, let us consider only what a variety of labour is requisite to form that very simple machine the shears, with which the shepherd clips the wool. The miner, the builder of the furnace, the mill-wright, the forger, the smith, must all of them join their different arts in order to produce them."* The writer declares that "the accommodation of an European prince does not always so much exceed that of an industrious and frugal peasant, as the accommodation of the latter exceeds that of many an African King, the absolute master of the lives and liberties of ten thousand naked savages."

*Smith's Wealth of Nations.

C

pursuits. The absurd pretensions to judicial astrology were fully examined, and openly exposed; and observation and experiment were at length substituted in the place of conjecture, and of fraud. Paolo Toscanelli had already erected his celebrated gnomon. Lorenzo da Valpajez constructed for Lorenzo de Medici, a clock, or piece of mechanism, which not only marked the hour of the day, but the motions of the sun, and the planets, the eclipses, the signs of the zodiac, and the whole revolutions of the heavens."

The art of printing, invented towards the close of the fourteenth century, is said to be of German origin, and is generally attributed to Dr. Faustus, although authors have not agreed to what nation or individual the honour of this invention belongs. This art, however, was fostered and brought to a high degree of perfection under the auspices of Lorenzo de Medici; and though the plant might not have been a native of Italy, it found in that country a congenial soil, in which it flourished in high luxuriance. The art of copper-plate engraving, and the revival of that of engraving on gems and stones, are likewise numbered among the happy results of the munificence of the Medici.

* This gnomon, which has justly been denominated the noblest astronomical instrument in the world, was erected by Toscanelli, about the year 1460, for the purpose of determining the solstices, and thereby ascertaining the feasts of the Romish church. It is fixed in the cupola of the church of St. Maria del fiore, at the height of 277 Parisian feet. A small orifice transmits from that distance the rays of the sun to a marble flag, placed in the floor of the church.-Roscoe's Life of Lorenzo de Medici, vol. ii. chap. 7.

In England, the prejudices which formerly existed. throughout Europe, against commerce and the useful arts, have, as before observed, in a great degree subsided. In that country we find their first noblemen, emulous of improvements in agriculture, and the useful arts. Societies have been founded in various parts of the kingdom for their patronage, whose transactions are periodically published, and premiums and honorary medals are awarded, with a liberal hand, to those whose inventions and discoveries, give promise of public utility. Many English noblemen, and men of affluence and high standing in society, have obtained letters patent for new inventions, or become interested in patents obtained by others.

To English liberality in encouraging and rewarding the authors of new inventions, may, in a great measure, be attributed the flourishing state of British agriculture, navigation and manufactures. A more contracted policy would have prevented the developement of those resources, which have rendered her able, single-handed, to oppose with success, a power which had nearly overwhelmed continental Europe, and threatened to extend its empire over the habitable globe.

It would far surpass the limits of this introduction to give even a sketch of the important inventions and improvements in the arts, which have so greatly promoted the prosperity of Great Britain. We will, how